Overviews for Beginners

Learning Web Design (2nd Edition)
by Jennifer Niederst

If you don’t want to go too “deep” in thinking about web design, then this book gives a quick and colorful overview of the main issues.

Son of Web Pages That Suck: Learn Good Design by Looking at Bad Design
by Vincent Flanders

The hardcopy version of Flanders’ celebrated website: less conceptual than Information Architecture but more fun. Truly, there are so many useless web pages out there that one can learn a lot from reading these well-argued criticisms. (The “son of” book is the second edition. Is it worth getting if you have already read the first edition? Depends on when you read it: If it’s more than two years ago, then yes, do get the second edition and laugh at the new examples. If you’ve read the first edition recently, then there will be no major benefits from reviewing the author’s “suckiness” principles.)